In a world where mass production is the norm and cheap products are king it seems backwards to start a company founded to deliver the opposite– small batches of bespoke luxury goods. That is exactly what Loyal Stricklin delivers. The husband-and-wife-owned company seeks out the highest quality materials and most skilled domestic labour they can find to bring their leather and canvass goods to life. The price is an afterthought, dictated by the high cost of the bespoke production model they follow.

The above backpack is of a quality unmatched by mass-produced alternatives, even designer options. The price of this quality weighs in at $495. If this seems high, it should not. Why? Because Loyal Stricklin has trouble maintaining inventory given how many they sell. They have successfully built a brand for the market outliers, the consumer who wants nothing but the best leather and canvas goods to whom price is just a number.

Carl Pei, founder of cell phone company Oneplus created a brand centered around enthusiast fandom. The company slogan “never settle” embodies the way that the company brings high quality smartphones to market at low prices by selling direct to consumer and eliminating the unnecessary bells and whistles that other phone brands are laden with.

Oneplus began as an invite-only purchase model since their manufacturing capacity was limited. All advertising was done through word of mouth and a tight knit community of fans quickly formed. As the company grew, Oneplus implemented a referral program with discount incentives to drive more sales. Today the company is a well established player in the global smartphone market.

Lewis George Hilsenteger and Jack McCann founded the YouTube channel Unbox Therapy in 2010. Today it has over 18 million subscribers. In order to make their channel in to the influential brand that it is now they upload several videos per week of the unboxing, setup, and initial use of tech products. While they initially had to purchase all of the products reviewed themselves, the majority of unboxing are now of units sent to the channel by brands seeking publicity through Unbox Therapy’s large tech-loving viewer base. Through sponsorships, endorsements, and ad revenue the channel has grown to an estimated net worth of over $50 million.

Founded in 1999 and first profitable in 2016, Chris Barton and Philip Inghelbrecht’s app Shazam was acquired by Apple in 2018 for $400 million. Shazam is an app that uses the built in microphones on a smartphone to record a sample of a song played near the device and compares the sample to a library of song “fingerprints” to find a match. This process allows the app to identify what song is playing in a user’s environment. The simple idea was quite difficult to execute as a method of cataloging song “fingerprints” had to be established before it was possible to compare the environment sample and find a match. Once this was finally overcome through clever methodology and coding (and a patent lawsuit with Tune Hunter in 2009), the company was acquired by Apple Inc. and the software was incorporated into iOS in addition to the existing mobile apps available across multiple platforms.

Marques Brownlee began building his YouTube channel MKBHD when he was in high school in 2008. Initially he reviewed tech products and software that he already had, uploading them to his channel where they gained the attention of buyers looking for product information and reviews before they purchased anything. As his channel grew he began to review more popular devices including smartphones and laptops. Soon he began to receive review units of various products from major brands. His popularity has afforded Marques the opportunity to interview many high-profile individuals including Kobe Bryant, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Elon Musk, and more. Marques’ personal brand exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit as he merged his passion for tech and the market of buyers looking for trustworthy and knowledgable reviews of tech devices in the era of internet shopping where many purchases are made before physically interacting with products.

Stanford University students Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown set out to create a different kind of social media. They envisioned a social media platform that was mobile-first, emphasizing the day to day experiences of users rather than large events in their lives. By designing the app as a messaging-first platform where relatively little information was visible on user’s profiles, they kept the app streamlined and more personal than platforms like Instagram. Over time, the incorporation of augmented reality content has helped differentiate the app and drive the capabilities of the smartphone forward. The app actually enhances the capabilities of the smartphone rather than simply relying on them. it is ultimately these design choices that have popularized the app and made Snapchat the successful company it is today.

Robert Scaringe founded the company which, after three name changes, came to be known as Rivian. The company launched in 2009 with the goal of bringing electric and autonomous vehicles to the mass-market.

Rivian’s first vehicle project was a hybrid sports car which was canceled in 2011. In 2017 Rivian acquired a production facility and announced their upcoming electric pickup truck and SUV models. By 2019 the company had 750 employees and was gearing up for production of their two finished vehicle designs. Due to the pandemic-related computer chip shortage production was ultimately delayed. In spite of the production delays the company was still growing and, by 2021, had 9,000 employees and held an IPO where the company was valued at $66.5 billion and Ford acquired  12% equity in the company.  At the time of posting, Rivian is still having some production issues and recalls but has produced roughly 14,000 vehicles out of their 71,000 preorders.

Lyft has its beginnings back in 2007 when Logan Green, John Zimmer, and Rajat Suri decided to focus on ride-sharing to cut down on the 80% of empty seats in vehicles on American highways. Initially tested on Cornell University’s campus, Zimride’s marketshare grew to 20% of the student body.  By 2012 the company had 29 employees and had facilitated over 26,000 carpools.

Later in 2012 the company launched the new service “Lyft” where users could pay for immediate ride-hailing. in 2013 Zimride and all of its assets, with the exception of Lyft, were sold to Enterprise Holdings. This allowed John Zimmer to focus exclusively on the hide-hailing service.